Showing posts with label sprawl trilogy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sprawl trilogy. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson (1988, ISBN  978-1-473-21742-3)

 Wikipedia says-  Mona Lisa Overdrive is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, published in 1988. It is the final novel of the cyberpunk Sprawl trilogy, following Neuromancer and Count Zero, taking place eight years after the events of the latter.

Purchased at Powell's on 2020-01-24 for 8.98$
 

Count Zero by William Gibson (1986, ISBN 978-0-441-11773-4)
 

Wikipedia says-  Count Zero is a science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson, originally published in 1986. It is the second volume of the Sprawl trilogy, which begins with Neuromancer and concludes with Mona Lisa Overdrive, and is an example of the cyberpunk subgenre.

 A good read. I think of this as a dystopian vision of the future.

Purchased at Powell's on 2020-02-24 for 7.99$

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984, ISBN 0-441-56959-5)

This is the first part (of three) of what became known as the Sprawl series. I am not sure but this novel may have introduced the term cyberpunk.

I have been hearing about this novel for years and I decided to read it (probably around 2006) but have just now read it.

I enjoyed the book, but some of the imagery was difficult. The story involves a small number of people who go on a quest, but the objective of the quest is hidden from them and the reader until the end. The main character Case was someone who could enter into computers and somehow get them to do things or reveal things. It wasn't clear to me if he did this with programs or what he used.

I didn't like the drug references in the novel. Since this novel was written some of the futuristic ideas seem less futuristic. While "Big Data" and AI will probably come to have a large affect on our lives it seems unlikely to me that they will be free to roam around "cyberspace" doing what they want, more likely is that they will be tools used by corporations to control people.

The vision of the future presented in the novel is dystopian.

Purchased probably at Powell's books sometime in 2006 for 7.99$